Peter Hessler, at the New Yorker, discusses the practice of outsourcing art to China. According to Hessler, Chinese people, mostly from the countryside, are trained to paint copies of photographs or paintings en masse and those paintings are sold to tourists elsewhere in the world.
Painters pose in their workspace:
Paintings to be sold as souvenirs somewhere in the American West:
Venice?
See more at the slide show.
Why can’t they freakin just hire local artists to do this? I know plenty of “starving artists” in the States who would cut off their right arm to get a paying gig like this. What the HELL.
Yeah, but hiring locally would probably cost more. The linked excerpt says that these artists can live comfortably with their wages in China. I suppose the same would not be true for American or European artists on the same wages. And that would probably mean less profit for the people who sell the pictures.
That’s what they get for pursing art degrees. Starving them is the only way to stop the next generation.
Sorry, couldn’t resist.
I think Im having PTSD.
Years ago, pre-PhD, pre Professor, pre-income, I graduated UC and worked at a gallery in SF selling this stuff. I distinctly remember hearing stories about how some of the overseas assembly line artists specialized in only bridges, others trees.
We were trained in the art of creating personalities for the “artists” and constructing a compelling narrative. And I remember selling paintings to some very high SES types. Even some celebrities. You see, this was high end shlock.
I quickly felt so much guilt that I high-tailed it out of there.
I have always worried that, if what goes around comes around, someday I would have to answer for those paintings. Maybe your post is a harbinger of the coming around of what went around.
Enjoyed it very much.
I read an amazing article a while back on these artists. A journalist went to one of these factories (and they are factories), and asked the artists to do self-portraits. I wish I could find that article again, it was fantastic. The artists are all highly talented, and are now experts on one particular style. They produced some amazing results. Unfortunetly, all I could find was a longer article in der spiegel about this (http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,433134,00.html) but not the one I was looking for.
This also happens in Viet Nam. I think you could take a picture to some storefronts and they would paint it for you.
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I’m a little disappointed after reading this (not because of the article, it’s great). More than anything I want to see some of these copy artists in motion, but there doesn’t seem to be anything like that online. As a treeplanter, I understand the skill, technique and strain involved in completing a more or less complex repetitive task with maximum efficiency, again, and again, and again. The most skilled artists probably move like gods. Respect.
For those of you that have no idea what treeplanting is: http://www.tree-planter.com/?navigation_id=90
There are also factories like this in Mexico…or at least there were.
People need to read the actual New Yorker article. These artists may be different from the ones you’re thinking about. The artists aren’t necessarily talented, but well trained. They aren’t artists who are free to paint what ever moves them, they paint what they are told to paint. They don’t even necessarily like to paint or draw, it just happens to be what they specialized in as opposed to shoes and plastic toys. It’s a factory job like any other.
What was most fascinating to me about the article was that often the artists didn’t even know what they were painting. What are cultural icons in Western culture are simply shapes to be painted – the artists couldn’t identify them to the author, they called Venice the “Water City” without any concept of where it was or that it was real. The article was a strong statement about our own culture and what we’ve done to it. Even your items of worship – plastic rosaries, replicas of the Last Supper – were possibly made by someone with no idea of their meaning. Do they lose their meaning? Does it matter how our things are made? If we think it matters if the people who make our clothes are well-paid, does it matter if the art in our life, the things that are supposed to bring us joy, were made with the same enthusiasm as a GI Joe toy?
I’m reminded of the velvet painting “factories” of Mexico. As an artist myself, I agree with some of the above posters about how the art may loose its meaning, and it is, in a way, taking away work from independent artists. However, I know that the velvet painters of Mexico were able to drastically improve their economic standings by working in painting factories, so I’m not really sure how to judge this. Do I get outraged because local and individual artists are loosing potential work? Or do I encourage these entrepreneurs who can possible improve their quality of life by selling mass-produced art?
(Also, if anyone is interested in the velvet painting factories of Mexico, I’d suggest reading Sam Quinones’s book ‘Antonio’s Gun and Delfino’s Dream’, which discusses in depth the rise and fall of velvet painting.)
I think it’s insulting to assume that those people don’t have talent, just because it’s their job to do something meaningless. I bet a lot of them are very creative, and can create wonderful works on their own. A lot of commercial artists in the US struggle with that too. Creating meaningless stuff for money, but they are still talented and creative, even if their job tells them to put out a product.
I would think that was insulting too. But one of the artists in the article actually says she has no natural talent and doesn’t really enjoy the work.
It still requires talent to paint reproductions. Many people say they’re not talented at something when that’s objectively not true.
Enjoying the work has nothing to do with whether or not one is talented.
As an artist/illustrator, I don’t believe in the myth of talent. Creating images is a learned skill that takes years of hard work and practice, and I think calling someone ‘talented’ is dismissive of all of the hard work they’ve done. I’ve often seen the idea of talent used to justify paying artists or illustrators less because “if they are talented, it must have just been soooo easy to make that image.”
Anyway, copying images the way these artists do is a relatively straightforward process. They are very skilled craftsmen/women, but they are basically performing the job of a highly advanced Photoshop filter.
Definitely. It’s a faux-pas in the art world to mistake technical proficiency for talent. You can have a talent for technical proficiency, but it’s a learned skill.
It strikes me as both sad and amusing that these factory workers are more technically proficient than maybe 95% of the art students at the universities I’ve attended. Sure, they look like the soulless imitations of imitations that they are, but I can’t help but wonder if western universities could learn something from them. It might shock a lot of art students to learn that they should be able to do this, and, in my opinion, need to. Creativity is necessary, but we place too much emphasis on it and mystify what these workers are proving is a skill. I think that’s why this article is so fascinating, in the first place. We imagine painting as something complicated and beyond the grasp of the “untalented,” and it’s a fun kick in the face to learn that it isn’t true.
As an artist I see assembly-line style paintings detracting the art value of original work with similar styles. I am sure some of these people have talent and I have come across many art students that can reproduce a portrait or landscape photo-realistically. But they struggle to move beyone depiction to self-expression. I also suppose that it depends on one’s definition of art. I see these type of works as interior decor rather than art. Some commercial work has more cultural value as art than this work.
So what do you think of the painting workshops of, say, the Renaissance? This is not so different from the workshops that would churn madonnas after madonnas (or plump nymphs after plump nymphs) for the homes of the merchant class.
If you ever visit the Prado in Spain, we’ve got IIRC half a dozen more or less similarly posed Venuses by Titian. And this was Titian, painting variations on the same theme of Naked Mythological Women for Philip II…
Additionally, I think it is the assembly line structure creating something that was once a one of kind that negates consideration of this as art. It is just sad overall.
I think it’s important that these paintings answer the function of art as well as paintings made by local artists working in different conditions. I don’t think that something has to be self-expression in order to be art. A tattoo is art, even if it’s more what the wearer wants than what the artist wants. A Renaissance painting is art, even if it was created under strict limitations from the wealthy patron or the church.
These paintings are eerie. In my job I run across them often. They are like people without souls. Zombie Art.
It is a shame that this act is promoted as acceptable.
maybe people could stop buying bad art.
I afraid I don’t see why this is worth any (any) debate, whatsoever.
What do you think it was like for natives in PerĂş or MĂ©xico in the 1700-1800?
What do you think it was like in Florence 1400?
What do you think it was like in Mesopotamia?
What do you think it was like in 1850 Europe?
What do you think it was like for hmmm, Warhol (whose studio was named “The Factory”?
There have always been art factories. And there have always been few talented, original, authentic and valued artists.
Please someone tell why all the drama and surprise.
No drama, no surprise.
If it has happened before it will happen again.
Nothing is new on this earth.
Historically it is common to beat a spouse. Your right, i think I shall do so tonight. It has happened before and it will happen again.
What difference is it to The World c. 2009.
What difference is it to you.
I’m only comparing art market history through the times, that’s it.
And art history does make a difference to me; it’s just that I don’t feel outraged by this fact (chinese skilled artists producing images), any more than slave work anywhere in the planet. Slave work is infuriating – but not surprising; the fact that art is also part of the same system is an added symptom, not news.
So I’m only commenting to learn how you, whom I regard as pretty knowledgable people, read this fact.
Is this any more newsworthy because this is art’s aura? Is that what affects you? Because as I stated in my previous post, that’s the way it’s always been.
Best, Clau
This does not affect me anymore than any other slave work affects me, thus I feel obligated to do my part to stand up for my rights and the rights of people whose rights may be compromised.
To me, it is newsworthy because it is an example of “art washing”, like “green washing”. If someone who previously didn’t recognize it in one area recognizes it in another action is being taken.
In the everyday world this art is being sold as real not as reproduced. If someone would like to have a second rate reproduction (not that these artists aren’t skilled but this form of reproduction does not pass on the original artists merit in ways other forms of reproduction (etching, litho, woodblock, even serigraph) do more effectively) for their wall that is of course their decision but that reproduction needs to be shown for all that it represents.
And yes, I agree, this deserves no more attention than anything else, if at all. The time being spent on this subject could be better spend elsewhere.
If the Reproduction sells… if the documentary sells… if the article gets viewers…
Thank you Elena, that is exactly my point. Somehow, if we consider the art product in art history, this is just another (sad) brick in the wall.
And thank you Anon, I hadn’t noticed that this “art is being sold as real not as reproduced”. I thought it was being sold as what it is and not under false pretences. I guess this subject raises an interesting question on what is real art, and what is not. Because it’s definition has had a huge transformation in the last century, and I believe it will be redefined in the one to come.
And I do spend most of my time paying attention to the art market, it fascinates me and it makes my living. I didn’t know “green washing” existed as a concept, since I can’t translate it into spanish. I’ll look for more examples on this. Thank you very much for your insight 
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“They aren’t artists who are free to paint what ever moves them, they paint what they are told to paint.”
Welcome to the world of commercial art, graphic art, and production art. I have a degree in production art and a BA in fine art–guess which one put food on the table?
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